This is what happens when you take your eyes off a five-year-old for five minutes. Billie Jo Decker found that her daughter Breanna had let her pet calf into the house. The calf seems to enjoy the adventure. Decker didn’t lose her cool, and in fact was pretty amused by the situation. She just grabbed a camera and recorded Breanna’s attempts at explanation. And it eventually leads to an adorable moment of affection between Breanna and her beloved calf. (via Daily Picks and Flicks)

That didn’t take long. Snooperking saw the teaser trailer for the upcoming Star Wars film and set to work making a LEGO version. It took about twelve hours of work, but he got it uploaded about 4AM just in time to join the family for a holiday weekend visit. (via Tastefully Offensive)

Saturday, November 29, 2014

Will we ever be able to let go of Breaking Bad? Maybe not, when fans keep giving us treats like this supercut from Matthijs Vlot. Vlot made a rap song out of clips from the TV show that rhymes, holds a proper beat, and does not rely on autotune or other tricks outside of old-fashioned editing. It’s just Walter, Jesse, and the other characters saying the things they said. The result is catnip for fans of the show! (via Warming Glow)

These little red pandas really loves their zookeeper. Either that, or they consider the guy to be just another tree to climb and explore! Or maybe they always like to cause trouble, like when one of them knocks the guy’s hat off. These pandas live at the the Maruyama Zoo in Sapporo, Japan. (via Daily Picks and Flicks)

Friday, November 28, 2014

Only a year to go -and we get our first glimpse at the new Star Wars film, the first under the Disney name. It appears that someone new is taking advantage of the power of the Dark Side. Check out that new model light saber! The Millennium Falcon looks pretty good for a vehicle with too many billion miles on it. Get ready for a series of these teasers over the next year.

The Achao, Chile, volunteer fire department is always ready to respond to an emergency. But they also dance! In full gear! If you’re in a hurry, you can skip ahead. The dancing starts at about 1:45. The song is "Soy Tu Nene Malo" by Nene Malo. (via Daily Picks and Flicks)

Jimmy Fallon continued his annual tradition of making the year’s biggest polo songs into holiday song parodies last night on The Tonight Show. Fallon and Rashida Jones put holiday cheer into “All About That Bass,” “Stay With Me,” “Turn Down For What,” “Wiggle,” “Anaconda,” “Bang Bang,” “Let It Go,” and “Fireball.” The modified lyrics are at the YouTube page. (via Warming Glow)

Thursday, November 27, 2014

This turkey running on a treadmill is not the kind you’re liable to eat. He doesn’t have much breast meat, after all -and it would be hard to catch him! He’s actually a lucky turkey, living the good life at Brown University as a subject in Dr. Thomas Roberts’ studies of animal motion. Read more about the science behind a turkey on a treadmill at Digg.

You might be busy preparing your turkey and dressing as you watch this, and you might make the best pumpkin pie eve, but if you learn these fascinating facts about Thanksgiving food, you’ll have something more to say besides “Thank you,” when your dinner guests compliment your cooking. John Green uses this week’s mental_floss List Show to share some trivia about turkeys, dressing/stuffing/filling, potatoes, corn, cranberries, and other traditional Thanksgiving dishes. (via mental_floss)

Wednesday, November 26, 2014

It’s the ultimate showdown of badass fictional characters in black! Never mind the odd crossover of the Disney and DC universes -at least there’s no problem with the style of music for these two. Who will win when the Caped Crusader goes after the Sith Lord with light sabers? Enjoy this Super Power Beat Down video from MachinimaPrime. (via Gamma Squad)

Munchkin is an adorable Shih Tzu puppy who has a teddy bear costume. He was a hit at Halloween with his costume, but watch him walk on a treadmill! It honestly looks like we’re being chased by an Ewok. (via Laughing Squid)

A new year is coming, faster than you thought, and the new crop of calendars is ready to keep your 2015 straight! Calendars make great Christmas gifts, due to the timing, and due to the fact that they come in so many different flavors. Here are a few new ones that might make a meaningful gift for someone you know, even if it’s yourself, in a list I posted at mental_floss. Prepare yourself- many of them feature cute animals and/or attractive people showing skin.

When did people start losing their minds over Christmas shopping? Maybe it was a gradual process. Thirty years ago, shopping centers promoted Black Friday as a good day to get your Christmas shopping done, and a lot of folks listened. Here are a couple of news reports from WLOX, on Thanksgiving Day and then on Black Friday in 1983. The money quote: “It gets a little crowded.” People were happily enduring the crowds, and indeed, at least one shopper just wanted to join the crowds for holiday cheer.

Compare that with what we’ve seen in the past few years, as shopping has become a competition to see who can score of those “limited supply” electronics at half price. Here’s a supercut posted last year.

The money saved on items we really don’t need does not justify the time, hassle, and danger of injury to oneself or others involved in the modern version of Black Friday. There’s still a month left to shop, smaller stores to visit, online sales that involve no hassle at all, and one’s sanity to consider. (via Uproxx)

Tuesday, November 25, 2014

The Copenhagen musical group The Bottle Boys play us a tune we all know and love, and let us in on one of their secrets to making bottle music look so easy -when we all know it’s not. From the YouTube page:

Sometimes people say, that it’s impossible to play that fast on bottles when they see our videos, because they are looking at just one persons head movements. But if you look closer you will see, that we share all the melodies by two persons. So if Philipp plays one part of the lead melody, Kaspar plays the other half, which combined gives you the complete melodic part that you all recognize:-)

We decided to shoot this video in our own studio, since it’s too cold outside here in Denmark and since we wanted it to have a more cosy look, without too much else going on in the frame. In that way you can really focus on what’s being played. We chose to play Y.M.C.A because it has some fast melodic parts and some really cool secondary melody lines.

McGarrah Jessee is an advertising agency in Austin, Texas. They’ve been in business for 18 years, but only recently hired their 100th employee. That employee was Elliot Nordstrom. On his first day at work, he got the royal treatment to celebrate his hiring. I’m sure that made him feel special -or specially embarrassed, but he was a good sport about it. I think he’ll be happy working there. Personally, I think all new hires should get this kind of welcome. Of course, an advertising agency knew this kind of stunt would make a good ad. (via Digg)

Research into how dogs think is yielding some amazing results, although a lot of it just confirms what we already thought from behavior observation, but did not know for sure. What’s amazing is how its done: putting a dog in an MRI machine.

There are 106 baby boys born for every 100 baby girls. The folks from MinuteEarth tell us why, as far as we know, in this video. However, the sex imbalance is more severe than birth statistics indicate, and varies over time and place. They offer reasons for that, too. (via Geeks Are Sexy)

Monday, November 24, 2014

As we prepare for a particularly American holiday centered around the custom of eating ourselves into a coma, we might want to learn more about what’s going on in our bodies. Why do we feel so full after Thanksgiving dinner? Because we ate too much. But that’s just the beginning. Watch this video from the American Chemical Society now, so you’ll have time to forget the unpleasantness of the situation before the turkey hits the table. And remember, when you can’t eat any more, there’s always leftovers for tomorrow! (Thanks, Elaine Seward!)

Which dog will eat a plate of spaghetti noodles faster: a golden retriever or a German shepherd? Recall the last competition between these breeds of dogs, in which both considered themselves winners for different reasons. Then you can probably guess which dog will win this one, but you may be surprised at the margin of victory. (via Viral Viral Videos)

His show, Last Week Tonight, isn’t even airing the rest of the year, but John Oliver had to weigh in with his two cents about that strange American tradition of pardoning a presidential turkey. Just add that to the many weird American traditions that make no sense. (via Uproxx)

We know quite a bit about the anglerfish because it’s so weird that bloggers love to talk about it. But it’s rare to catch footage of one in its natural habitat because they live deep down where there is little sunlight. An ROV from the Monterrey Bay Aquarium Research Institute (MBARI) recorded this anglerfish at a depth of 600 meters in Monterrey Canyon. Although MBARI recorded anglerfish before, they believe this is first time the species Melanocetus, or the Black Seadevil, has been filmed. (via Daily Picks and Flicks)

If they made a movie about Black Friday shopping, of course it would be a horror film. By this point, I’m starting to believe that Black Friday sales are a tradition people only participate in to create news stories and viral videos. Why would anyone want to do this? My Christmas shopping philosophy has evolved over the years -I never buy any Christmas gift because it’s on sale anymore. I’d personally rather buy something that the receiver needs or wants. That’s completely opposite my philosophy for buying groceries. This movie parody trailer is from Nacho Punch. (via Tastefully Offensive)

This video probably contains spoilers for last week’s episode of The Walking Dead. But you probably don’t care; you’re either not interested or you’ve seen it already. It’s got details on how they did the scene without killing anyone important. It vindicates my objection: the van should have landed on its nose or roof. The way it actually landed in the show didn’t make sense and should have broken a spine or two anyway.

We make jokes about Canadians, and Canadians make jokes about Americans, but deep down, we love each other. Kind of like siblings. Tuesday night, the Toronto Maple Leafs hosted the Nashville Predators. Considering all the snow between here and there, the crowd was overwhelmingly Canadian. The U.S. national anthem was being sung when the microphone pooped out. That’s when the Canadian crowd jumped in the finish the song themselves! It was a lovely moment. (via Daily Picks and Flicks)

Besides all that wonderful food, Thanksgiving is a time to spend with family, to watch football, or to shop, but some folks are not into any of those things. You can still enjoy the long holiday weekend by curling up with some Thanksgiving movies. Take your pick from a list I posted at mental_floss.

Saturday, November 22, 2014

The Man Who Laughs is a 1928 silent film from German Expressionist director Paul Leni, starring Conrad Veidt in the title role. From Wikipedia:

Taking place in England in the year 1690, The Man Who Laughs features Gwynplaine, the son of an English nobleman who has offended King James II. The monarch sentences Gwynplaine's father to death in an iron maiden, after calling upon a surgeon, Dr. Hardquannone, to disfigure the boy's face into a permanent grin. As a title card states, the King condemned him "to laugh forever at his fool of a father."[3]

This verson has been overdubbed with music from Tim Burton’s Batman. (via Metafilter)